PITTSBURGH -- Dan Bylsma, as coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins and U.S. national team, is pulling double duty this season -- and on Saturday, good luck in one doubled as some mild misfortune for the other.

Bylsma's Pittsburgh Penguins played Ryan Miller's Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, but Miller, one of six goalie candidates for the Olympic team, wasn't in net. He didn't plan to be in uniform at all, actually.

Miller had a good excuse, though; after he stopped 45 shots in a 1-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Friday, the team called up Matt Hackett to back up Jonas Enroth against the Penguins. Hackett found out at midnight, drove from Rochester to Buffalo and then snagged a ride down I-79 to Pittsburgh. He, not Miller, was at the morning skate.

On Saturday, Bylsma, as he did in August at the Olympic orientation camp, reiterated that how a goalie plays from now until the end of December, "unlike any other position on that evaluation process," will be a significant factor -- at least as much as past work. Miller, who was Team USA's best player at the 2010 Games, is no different.

"Playing and playing well and getting on a roll and performing well is going to be very important for every one of those guys," Bylsma said. "Whether I see Ryan play tonight, I saw him play last night."

Bylsma paused and nodded.

"He was pretty darn good."

Indeed. The only goal Miller allowed was Erik Karlsson's game-winner with 95 seconds remaining. He's now stopped 77 of the 80 shots he's faced in his first two games. It's a strong statement, albeit one over a small sample size. Buffalo has 37 more games before the roster is announced on Jan. 1. Let's say Miller starts about 25 of them.

Still, Bylsma is watching -- and for Miller, that's a good thing. His role remains one of the process' most intriguing question marks, given that Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings is the presumed starter, and that Detroit's Jimmy Howard, Ottawa's Craig Anderson and New Jersey's Cory Schneider are in the mix, with prospect John Gibson on the periphery.

Out of all six goalies, especially if you factor in Gibson's work at the world junior championships, Miller has had the publicly roughest last few years. His 2011-12 season was submarined by a concussion-causing collision with Milan Lucic; last season, he played behind a terrible team. He's also 33 years old. That makes him something less than a lock, and he knows it.

"This is wide open," Miller said at orientation camp. "The job I did was three-and-a-half, almost four years ago. You can't stack that in the net behind you and have it deflect pucks away for you. You have to refocus, reestablish and start over."

It's not that Miller has been bad, either. he's posted save percentages of .916, .916 and .915 the last three seasons. That's down from .929 in 2009-10 and, generally speaking, average, though his injury and team factors into the mix.

Even-strength save percentage is typically a more accurate indicator for goalies than the overall number because it removes the volatility of shorthanded play. Miller's, over his last two seasons, is .925. That's 17th among the 49 goaltenders with at least 1,500 minutes played during that stretch.

That's not bad at all. It's also behind Howard (No. 2, .934), Schneider (No. 8, .932) and Anderson (No. 15, .926). He's ahead of Quick by .04 points. So, yes, the "body of work" factor, at least for the immediate past, is close to a wash -- or it should be, at least. Miller's play in Vancouver -- a 1.35 GAA and .946 save percentage, and tournament MVP honors despite a loss in the gold-medal game -- is as good an indicator of any. In 33 appearances with the Sabres before that, from October-December, he posted a .933 save percentage.

As for the Bylsma eye test, he's faced Miller nine times. That's the opposite of, say, Schneider, 27, who played for the Vancouver Canucks until a draft-day trade landed him with the New Jersey Devils. Schneider allowed three of 21 shots on Thursday night against Pittsburgh, though two of the goals were far from his fault. Before that game, Bylsma talked about its importance for the evaluation process.

"Cory especially is a guy who we have not seen very much of," he said. "I've talked to a lot of people in the West about him, and his previous coach (Alain Vigneault) about him, but I haven't seen him play a lot."

Now, he will. Same goes for Miller, Saturday night aside. Quick, Howard and Anderson have a lot of games ahead of themselves as well. Maybe they make things tough for Bylsma, assistants Peter Laviolette and Todd Richards, general manager David Poile and the rest of Team USA's braintrust. Maybe they don't. But right now, it's tough to single out any of them, and Jan. 1 is closer than it seems.